


One Final Skål

by supersmileys (gingerninja)



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Drinking away the pain, Earthquakes, I don't want it to end, Ragnarok, last night - Freeform, let's hope for happiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-26
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 15:51:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerninja/pseuds/supersmileys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the final night before things change for good. As Ragnarok gets closer, everything has been getting worse and worse for everyone. Life has already strayed from what it used to be; but it's comforting to know that some things will always stay the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the latest episode (3X12). Ye be warned.

Mike awoke suddenly from his stilted sleep. It was the night before the ceremony where Frigg would finally choose her Odin. Coincidentally enough, the ceremony was scheduled to happen right before Martin had predicted that Ragnarok would break loose. Both occasions proved to be life-changing, and the latter meant that there was a risk that not everyone would make it out alive.   
  
Of many things, Mike was not certain, but it was hard not to figure out that there was a person stumbling downstairs in his bar. Arming himself with a golf club that Olaf had left behind, he slowly crept downstairs to investigate.   
  
The floor and the stairs seemed to creak more than usual; or perhaps it was because Mike was acutely aware of his senses and his mortality on this final night before things changed for good. Or maybe it was because he was usually so sure of himself that he never crept slowly; he would always walk confidently down the stairs with purpose.  He was Ullr, for fuck’s sake, and maybe even Odin! Or, he used to be. Lately, any desire to be the ‘all-father’ had been sapped from him.

Mike was no longer sure of his purpose. It wasn’t fear of the possible intruder that made him hesitant; it was the desire to make time go slower to the point where it would stop, and everything with it. Mike didn’t need to worry about the former; the intruder was only his younger brother, Ty.    
  
“Jesus, Ty, you scared me!” At his words, the floor started to shake as it had been doing increasingly over the past few days. Mike was excellent at guessing the magnitude of the earthquakes; as he braced himself against the wall he became sure that the earthquake was a 5.7 on the Richter scale. Uncomfortable and scary, but on the whole not life-threatening. Ty braced himself against the bar, covering his head in case of falling debris.   
  
“Not Jesus, just Hodr,” Ty managed a smile, lifting his arm from his head once the shaking had stopped.   
  
“You should be with Dawn.” Mike walked down to the bar and left his golf club against the wall before pouring himself a drink. Ty let out a soft sigh and stared down at the drink Mike had handed him.   
  
“Dawn went home to her mum’s tonight. She’ll drive back tomorrow. It was a pretty emotional day for us all – Anders stopped by this afternoon and entrusted the company to her in the chance that Anders died tomorrow.” Ty’s voice grew quieter and hoarser.   
  
**********************************************************************************  
  
 _“We’ll be fine, Dawn. You just have to have faith.” Dawn had come home from work and flung her arms around Ty; there had been three large earthquakes that were each larger than the last. Ty was surprised that she was home this early – the roads were clogged with panicked people heading home, away from the city that wasn’t designed to stand up against earthquakes.  
  
Ty’s words were comforting, but the way he gripped her tightly contradicted his words. He didn’t want anything else but to just stay there, holding her close until the world ended. With them together. The ground shuddered with a tell-tale tremor, and Ty pulled Dawn into a doorway before the house started properly rattling. They could hear glasses smashing in the kitchen and utensils clanging to the floor. Ty shut his eyes and waited for the quake to stop.   
  
It finally subsided, but Dawn and Ty were both still trembling. The house and the house’s surroundings were eerily quiet; no sirens, screams or cars to be heard. The distinct lack of humming also suggested that that last quake had cut power. They stood in the doorway for about five minutes, in case of an aftershock (although what was causing the earthquakes meant that they tended not to follow usual tectonic patterns).   
   
 “Will you marry me?” Ty whispered into Dawn’s ear. Dawn pulled her head back from Ty’s shoulder, the tears down her cheeks evident. Despite this, she smiled.   
  
“No,” she replied. “You can ask me again tomorrow night when you’re sure you actually want to and not because the world is ending.” Ty nodded and smiled back.  
  
“Deal. I left the ring at work, anyway.”  Dawn laughed and she kissed him softly.   
  
“You have a ring?” she asked softly. Ty smiled knowingly.  
  
“I’ve said too much already.” He kissed the top of her head, and they went out into the kitchen to assess the damage and start cleaning up. The power was definitely out, but thankfully Ty would be able to keep the food in the fridge cold if the power wasn’t restored soon.   
  
There was broken glass everywhere from glasses as well as the windows, which had finally cracked from the pressure of the past few days. But thanks to Ty’s foresight and a touch of DIY skills, the oven and fridge hadn’t fallen over – they had stayed firmly braced to the wall. For about 15 minutes, they worked in silence to clean up and prepare for the inevitable next jolt.   
  
  
A banging on the door startled Ty and Dawn, who had only just started to settle slightly from the most recent earthquake (“6.9” Mike had texted Ty immediately after it had happened).  
  
“I’ll get it,” Dawn offered, brushing dust off her hands and heading out into the hallway.   
  
“Anders!” Ty heard her say in a surprised tone. “Were you _ driving _in that?!”  
  
“The harbour bridge collapsed,” Anders responded, and Dawn let out a gasp.   
  
“Oh my god – was anyone hurt?” The pair of them walked out into the kitchen. Anders shook his head.  
  
“I don’t know,” he responded. “But that’s pretty fucking major.”  
  
“What are you doing here?” Ty asked. Anders wasn’t the type to take unnecessary risks, and it took even more for him to drive all the way out to the suburbs where Ty and Dawn lived when he himself lived in the city.  
  
“The city’s falling to pieces, Tyrone, and there’s a few things I need to sort out, alright?” The way in which Anders snapped at his brother revealed how stressed he was feeling. It both comforted Ty and frightened him to see Anders like this; it was nice to know that Ty and Dawn weren’t alone with their fear, but to see Anders upset when it normally took a lot to rattle him was disheartening.   
  
“…would you like to come and sit down, then?” Dawn asked tentatively, gesturing to the living room. “Ty, would you make some coffee?” Ty nodded, and Anders and Dawn went to sit and talk.   
  
Ty quietly swore when he realised that the water wasn’t working, but he had been prepared and he pulled a bottle of water out from the cupboard to put in a saucepan. Their stovetop was gas (much to Dawn’s initial chagrin) but it had proved useful lately.   
  
He brought out the coffee into the living room, where Dawn was sitting on the couch and Anders in the armchair across from her. Anders hadn’t said a word since he had sat down; he had just carefully held the manila folder in his hands close to his chest, his chin resting atop of it. Ty sat down next to Dawn and looked at his brother expectantly. Anders finally started to speak.  
  
“Dawn, this is for you.” He handed her the manila folder. Dawn took it from him and opened it, staring at the contents.   
  
“What’s this?”But she knew the answer already.    
  
“It’s all the ownership documents for JPR. I transferred them into your name today.” Dawn stood up in shock.  
  
“No.” Anders looked up at her sadly.  
  
“Dawn, if nothing happens tomorrow, then fine, you can give them back and I’ll transfer them over. But, let’s be honest, things aren’t looking up, and I need to know that you’ll be okay when we’re gone. You are going to do great things, Dawn, and giving you the proper reign of the business is a way that I can relax a little about tomorrow.”  
  
“I don’t want this.” Dawn’s voice was shaky. Ty had fixed a glare on Anders – how dare he make her upset like this?!  
  
“What – you don’t want the business?” Anders was surprised. Dawn shook her head, fighting back tears.  
  
“No! I don’t want ANY of this – the earthquakes, the disappearances, the uncertainty – what am I supposed to DO, knowing that my boyfriend and my boss are potentially walking off never to be seen again?!” Ty reached out and grabbed her hand protectively. He wanted his brother to get the fuck out of his house.   
  
“Dawn, sweetheart, you’ve gotta understand- ”   
   “Don’t you dare,” Ty growled, cutting Anders off. Dawn pulled her hand out of Ty’s grasp and left the room before her tears could get the better of her. Anders looked over to his brother.   
  
“What, so you’re just going to pretend that everything’s going to be okay tomorrow?!”  
  
“You don’t know ANYTHING about what’s going to happen!” Ty shouted. The room dropped a few degrees in temperature, but for once Anders didn’t make a joke about it.   
  
“Neither do you! Forgive me for making a couple of contingency plans and preparing for the worst-case scenario!”  
  
“But you’re certain that you’re going to die,” Ty accused in a dangerously quiet voice. Anders didn’t break eye contact from Ty, and he felt sick to his stomach. He wanted in that moment for his older brother to tell him to cheer the fuck up, that of course he wasn’t going to die, that Ty was just being overly dramatic as per usual.   
  
“Yes.” Was Anders’ response instead. Ty swallowed and stared at the wall to the left of Anders. He couldn’t look his brother in the eye.   
  
“Ty, look, bro. This ceremony thing is the only thing that will stop the world from falling to pieces. I highly doubt that Hanna’s going to pick either of them – it was looking like she would have gone for Mike, but Mike’s been rather preoccupied dealing with Michele’s death, and she doesn’t want to get in the way of that. Things are going to happen that we’ve not anticipated, and you need to prepare for the fact that these might be the last few hours you will ever spend with Dawn,” Anders said gently.   
  
Ty squeezed his eyes shut again, but this time he couldn’t stop a couple of tears from escaping.   
  
“Ty, it really makes me happy that you’re worried about dying, though – a previous you would have embraced Ragnarok with open arms,” Anders tried to joke.   
  
“Fuck you,” Ty whispered, but he couldn’t hide a smile. He pressed a hand to his face to stop him crying anymore.    
  
“I hate the thought that I might leave her behind,” he confessed, looking back to his brother. Anders’ eyes were filled with concern, but Anders tried to hide it for his brother’s sake.   
  
“She’ll be fine, Ty. She’s strong. She’s done it before, and she’ll do it again.”  
  
“I’m not worried about her, I’m worried about _ me _. I can’t go on without her. I can’t die, knowing that I’m not with her.”_  
  
“But you are with her. You’ll always be with her. You wrote down all your cupcake recipes, right? That’s how you’ll live on forever. And she can marry someone else, but he’ll never live up to you and your cupcakes.” There was a whimper from the doorway, and Dawn came in and hugged Ty tightly, and started sobbing.  Anders found it hard to stop crying himself, but it was unclear whether it was just because Dawn’s tears were contagious or whether he was longing in that moment that he had someone to hold as firmly as Ty was cradling Dawn.   
  
“I have to leave town tonight and see Mum,” Dawn said through her tears. “Ty, you should come with me. It’ll be safer.”  
  
“But if I go with you, I’m afraid I might not come back,” Ty replied.  
  
“Would that be such a bad thing?” Dawn asked into Ty’s shirt. Ty desperately wanted to say ‘No’; that they could go wherever they wanted as long as they were together, but Ty was aware of Anders’ watchful eye, and he knew that he’d always regret not being together with his brothers when Ragnarok peaked. He had to stay.  
  
“I’m sorry, I can’t. But can you promise me you’ll come back tomorrow morning? And that you’ll text me if there’s a big shake, and when you get to your mother’s?”   
  
“Of course.” Anders was glad. The fewer people that had to get tangled up in this mess, the better. And if Dawn was out of town, then she wouldn’t be tempted to try and help as she was likely to do.   
  
“I have a survival kit for you to put in your car,” Ty said, and he went to go find it. As soon as Ty had left the room, Anders took his chance. He swooped over to the couch where Dawn was sitting, and did the very thing she had banned him from doing.   
  
“Dawn, this is very important. It’s going to be very dangerous here tomorrow, so I need you to stay away from Auckland. Say your goodbyes to Ty tonight, and come back in a couple of days instead. Take your Mum, and try and get as far south as possible,” he said softly, using his Bragi powers in that body one last time. Dawn just stared at him, her eyes glistening.  
  
“Why?” His powers hadn’t worked. She could see through them.  
  
“Dawn…please. Please do this for us. We need to know that you’re safe.               Please.” The sound of Anders pleading with her was the most frightening sound Dawn had ever heard; it sent chills down her spine. He was confirming her fears and making it too real. Plus the fact that Anders NEVER pleaded. It exposed a sort of desperation that she never wanted to hear from him again.   
  
“You want me to lie to Ty.” There was a pause, and Anders and Dawn could hear Ty digging around assembling the supplies to put in Dawn’s car.   
  
“Yes. Tomorrow morning’s going to be fucking awful, to put it bluntly. You won’t want tomorrow’s stress to be the last memory you have of him.” Dawn’s shoulders drooped, and Anders knew that he had gotten through to her.   
  
“Okay, that’s everything,” Ty announced; he was holding a plastic container. “I also put in some baking for your mother.” The reactions he received were polar opposite; Dawn smiled gratefully, whilst Anders rolled his eyes and muttered something that sounded like “AGAIN with the bloody cupcakes!”  
  
Dawn looked at her watch. “I should probably go before they make the decision to close all roads out of the city.” She got to her feet with Anders, and the three of them awkwardly stood there, not knowing how to proceed.   
  
Anders made the first move, enveloping her in a big hug and making an offering of peace.   
“I’ll feed your cat for you.”  
  
“I don’t HAVE a cat,” Dawn retorted, but her hug with Anders was a prolonged one. The possibility that she would never see him again was unfathomable.   
  
And then there was Ty. Sweet, caring, compassionate Ty. She couldn’t face saying anything to him. He whispered a comforting goodbye in her ear and she held onto him for as long as possible.   
  
“Won’t be long,” and neither of them knew exactly to what Ty was referring.   



	2. Chapter 2

“That’s rough,” Mike said shortly. Ty realised why Mike sounded less than sympathetic.   
  
“Mike, I’m sorry, I didn’t think-”  
“It’s okay, Ty,” Mike replied, but Ty wasn’t reassured. The pair of them sat in a sombre silence as Ty tried to contemplate how his brother must have been coping lately. Mike had taken the death of Michele pretty hard, and it didn’t help that he had to deal with everyone else’s grief on top of his own.    
  
“Have you been doing much this evening?” Ty tried to change the subject.  
  
“I was sleeping.”   
  
“That’s good!” Ty encouraged; sleep was something that had escaped the realm of Mike’s ability in the past couple of weeks. Mike stared down his drink as he took a sip.  
  
“Not really. I had to take a pill for it. It didn’t work, because I woke up when you entered.”   
  
“Oh,” Ty’s voice faltered, and they fell into a silence. The hours were ticking down before everything changed forever, and Ty secretly wished in that moment that he had decided to go with Dawn to her mother’s place, or that she had stayed behind with him. Sitting in a bar, silently mourning over deaths that had occurred and deaths that were likely to occur was not what Ty had hoped to achieve from the evening. Nonetheless, Mike was family, and he deserved a bit of company even if that company didn’t say anything to him.   
  
Mike wished he could have slept longer. Ever since he had found out that Michele had been killed, everyone around him had been mourning and blaming him. And all he could feel was numbness.   


* * *

_  
  
Mike felt as though he had done nothing but stand in the room with Michele’s body for an extended period of time while everyone else moved around him.  
  
Hanna had called him to tell him that Michele had died. He had gone by himself to make sure it was true. She was there and she offered him her condolences, but she had also informed him what she and Michele had been talking about before Martin entered. That had shocked Mike to the core. He had listened, still staring at Michele as Hanna gave the police officer a statement.   
  
Mike could hear the words that Martin had shouted at him in prior weeks: “Go away!” “Not you!” He knew that Martin would put the blame on Mike. No matter how much that Hanna had reassured Mike that Martin’s words wouldn’t be taken seriously in a court, it didn’t stop the damage. He knew it was his fault.   
  
Next were the rest of the gods and goddesses. That was worse. Still Mike had stood at the back of the room as each person came in to say their goodbyes; Axl, Olaf and Ty had gone in together to see her, and they turned to Mike and uttered their apologies (except Axl, who Mike _ knew _was blaming him for all this) before leaving. Anders had overcome his hatred of hospitals to see Michele, which was monumental.  
  
“Oh my GOD,” Anders said, not leaving the doorway to the room in the mortuary for a few moments. He hadn’t wanted to believe that she was actually dead; it was one death of a goddess too many for him.  Unlike the rest of his family, Anders completely ignored Mike’s presence in the room (Mike was barely sure of his own presence himself) and went straight to her bedside and gazed down at her pale, lifeless body.  
  
“Fuck, Michele,” Anders said, shaking his head. “I thought _ I’d _be the one to die first. You were always the powerful one.” He let out a little laugh in spite of himself. “They really shouldn’t have given you the realm of the dead to rule over. Watch out for Ty’s psycho ex-wife for me. She’s got nothing on you.” He reached out and squeezed her hand, and Mike realised that Anders had actually cared more for Michele than he had thought, and that Anders wasn’t just trying to piss him off._  
  
Stacey and Ingrid were even more difficult to deal with. The strangled gasp that escaped Stacey’s mouth was a sound Mike never wished to hear again. She had bolted from the room a quickly as she had entered (Olaf was waiting outside). Ingrid’s face just looked tired. The stress of being an oracle when the world was coming to an end was getting to her. Her mouth was downturned and she slowly walked up to Michele and stood beside her in silence, stroking her hair softly. After a few minutes, she turned back to the door, looking rather weary as she sighed “I need a drink.”  
  
Karen, Michele’s mother, was the worst of them all. She burst into hysterical sobs on sight of Michele and screamed at Mike “LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO MY DAUGHTER! SHE’S DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!” The hospital security came and lead Karen away, but her screams echoed in his head.   
  
And still Mike felt nothing.   
  
After what seemed like hours, he finally decided to leave the hospital. But as he walked through the corridors, he ran into a couple of familiar faces who were the last people he wanted to see at that moment.  
  
“Mike!” It was a woman’s voice which he hadn’t heard in nearly two years. Valerie. He winced, and turned around. Valerie, Rob and who Mike assumed was their daughter were walking in his direction.   
 “How are you?” Valerie asked, leaning forward and giving him a hug which he didn’t return. “Rob’s just in for one of his last check-ups.”  
  
“What brings you here, mate?” Rob asked, switching arms he was using to carry his little child. She looked so similar to Valerie with her curly blonde hair and big blue eyes, but Mike could also see the unmistakeable resemblance to her father. Mike didn’t answer either of their questions; the little girl was staring him down, almost as if SHE was judging him too.   
  
“Oh, this is our daughter Lucy!” Valerie said, brushing the hair off Lucy’s face. Mike gave a single nod.  
 “She’s beautiful.” Even the smile that Rob and Valerie exchanged wasn’t enough to inspire any emotion from him. Yet.   
  
“Are you visiting someone?” Valerie asked again, looking a little concerned.  
  
“My girlfriend died,” Mike replied, and he didn’t wait for a response before leaving. He heard Rob and Valerie call after him, but he didn’t look back. Saying the words still didn’t make the situation any more real to him. Standing in the room with her dead body there didn’t seem to make any difference. He couldn’t believe it.    
  
He had to deal with everyone falling to pieces around him, with being banned from speaking at her funeral, the blame, the police, the earthquakes. He didn’t care what happened anymore. All he wanted was to go to sleep for a very long time. Axl could be Odin, they could go to Asgard, Auckland could explode for all he cared. It didn’t matter anymore. 


	3. Chapter 3

  
Anders arrived just as another earthquake hit. This one was bigger than the last, and Ty seriously worried about his surroundings as the windows shattered. Anders was thrown against the wall as the jolt ripped through the building. The building was still swaying once the shaking had stopped.  
  
“I’m done with this shit. Can we hurry up and have this ceremony now? I’m over it,” Anders groaned, gripping his shoulder as he tried to stand.   
  
“Are you okay?” Ty asked, pulling himself up from the ground. He checked his phone anxiously for service, so that he could hear from Dawn.   
  
“Stop fussing, Ty, we’re all good. Alright, Mikkel, bet you can’t guess what magnitude that was?” Anders brushed off Ty’s concerns.  
  
“6.4” Mike answered automatically. Ty scanned the bar for damage.  
  
“Well, it’s a good thing you took all the alcohol down from the shelves, otherwise we’d have a lot more mess to deal with.”  
  
“I’m surprised the building didn’t fall down on top of us, given all the structural damage Michele nearly caused when you guys were renovating. Just look at all the cracks in the walls and the ceiling.” _Good job, Anders._ Ty wanted to kick Anders, but Mike didn’t seem to be listening. Instead, he just poured Anders a drink.  
  
“Oh, cheers, Mike, I can always count on you.” It was a simple comment, but it hit Mike hard. He could feel the past few weeks of emotion about to surface, and he needed to control it.   
 “Shit,” he muttered, and quickly made for the stairs before it was too late.   
  
Anders watched him with a confused look on his face.  
“Should we…go after him?” Ty shook his head.   
  
“No, just leave him. He hasn’t cried or anything since Michele died.”  
  
“He hasn’t _cried_?! He needs to cry! The world’s about to end! His girlfriend died!”  
  
“I know, that’s why we need to let him be, because if we go up there, he’ll stop. And he needs it.”


	4. Chapter 4

Axl and Mike were very similar that night in that they both were doing a lot of staring into space mulling over what the next day held in store for them all. Zeb had been rushing around getting all excited about them all getting their powers, and he even welcomed the earthquakes because he knew it meant a build-up to the greatest thing that would ever happen to Axl and his family.   
  
But Zeb seemed to be the only one excited. Axl felt more like when he was a kid and he was happy about going to the zoo but he could sense that Mike was stressed (and it had turned out that they couldn’t really afford to take Axl to the zoo for his birthday). All the other gods and goddesses around him weren’t excited about this so-called ceremony (not even Mike, although he seemed to have given up being Odin and life in general since Michele had been killed).   
  
Ingrid had been doing nothing but fretting throughout the house, worrying about all these things that Axl had not one clue about. She was taking Michele’s death hard, and she kept asking “Boys, would you like some tea?” and then making tea and refusing to drink it. Zeb was comforting and reassuring to her, and he managed to keep up with Ingrid’s fretting and taking it in his stride. In contrast, Axl was stationary. With each earthquake, he grew more and more worried.   
  
Mike used to be the one who would comfort him in thunderstorms. But that bridge had burned, and Axl didn’t want to face the humiliation of crawling back to his brother asking for help. He had to fight his own battles now. He was a man. No less of a man than Mike. Especially now, considering how lifeless Mike had been lately.   
  
So, if Mike was no longer contesting for Odin, then that would mean it would fall to Axl. The responsibilities and the duties and the leadership would all be entrusted to him. He was the one who would become a man when Hanna made her choice.   
  
Only, that night, Axl had never felt more like a child in his life.  
  
He needed his brothers.    


* * *

 _  
  
_It was the most courageous move Axl had ever made, stepping into Mike’s bar with the intention of asking him for guidance. The sight of his other brothers there instead threw him off guard.  
  
“What are you doing here?”  
  
“World’s worst bachelor party in your honour. Along with a semi-engagement party for Ty and Dawn because this bugger couldn’t wait to pop the question. Took you long enough,” Anders replied. The hesitancy that Axl was feeling was overcome by the gratitude and relief he had from seeing his brothers. It was them he needed to see on this last night. He made his way over to Anders, who gave him a friendly shoulder grip in greeting.   
  
“Better hurry up before Mike gets back – free reign on the booze.” To demonstrate, Anders climbed over the bar to reach down into a small fridge on the ground where Mike had been storing his alcohol since the earthquakes had started.   
  
“Where is he?” Axl asked, trying to sound casual, but the trepidation in his voice slipped out, and he knew that Ty had noticed by the way his brother’s eyes darted in his direction.   
  
“He’s upstairs. We suspect crying or sleeping, or maybe both.” Axl felt like doing the exact same things. He almost wanted to join Mike in doing so; anything would be better than this horrible sense of foreboding that churned his stomach constantly.   
  
“Lucky for some,” he muttered under his breath.  
  
“Have the earthquakes been getting to you?” Ty asked sympathetically.  
  
“Have the earthquakes been getting to _you_ , Ty?” Anders retorted. “You were way more weepy than usual this evening.”   
  
“Fuck off, Anders,” Ty replied automatically. Axl closed his eyes, feeling comforted by the sound of his brothers arguing.   
  
It was strange. If you had asked Axl a year ago how he’d like to spend his last evening as a mortal, sitting in a dark bar while his two brothers fought over their dignity was not the answer he’d have given.   
  
“You know what, Tyrone, in less than 24 hours I might just do that, would you be happy then?”

“Cut it out, the pair of you!” A voice from the stairs caught their attention. Mike walked down, his face looking worse for wear, but he was wearing half a smile.   
  
“Just in time! Our prodigal baby of the family has just arrived!” Anders exclaimed. Ty frowned and leaned over to Anders.  
  
“Wait, Mike or Axl?” Anders’ grin widened, and he left that question unanswered.   
  
“What are you doing here?” Mike asked his youngest brother, coming down the stairs. Axl stood to meet him.  
  
“I’m here to tell you that I’m sorry for everything. And I’m scared.” It was a few moments before anyone said anything. But Mike finally nodded.  
  
“It takes a real man to admit that he’s scared.”   
  
“Oh, thank FUCK for that!” Anders moaned in relief as Mike and Axl hugged it out.   
  
“Can we drink ‘til we die now?”


	5. This Is The End

  
“Did you think it would end like this?” Ty mused over his empty glass. It was in candlelight they sat, the four brothers together again.   
  
“Like what? Holed up in a shack in the middle of the city with no power and only alcohol to ease the fear? No way,” Anders said dryly.   
  
“I never thought it WOULD end. I thought we’d get our powers and go on forever. Doing who knows what and being awesome,” Axl lamented quietly.  
  
“The world’s about to end, and instead of going out and getting laid and having the time of my life, I’m stuck here with you three losers,” Anders tsked, shaking his head and filling up his glass.   
  
“At least you’re not alone,” Ty pointed out. Anders smiled.   
  
“That’s true. I’m even worse than being alone – I’m stuck with my brothers.”  
  
“Well, if this is the end, then I’m glad I’m with you guys,” Mike said bravely.   
  
“Oh, cut the crap, Mike, we don’t need anything sentimental right now. Just keep the booze coming,” Anders ordered. Mike shook his head, but he obeyed.   
  
“Alright, I call a toast. To me being the best man at Ty and Dawn’s wedding!” Anders declared, raising his glass in the air.  
  
“You?! I am so much better best man material than you are, Anders!” Axl protested, raising his own glass in the air.  
  
“Ty’s already asked me, actually, so you’re both out,” Mike said with a grin, following his brothers’ suit with his glass. They all looked to Ty.  
“That’s assuming there’ll BE a wedding,” Ty murmured.  
  
“Ty, now’s not the time to be Mr God of Darkness. Let us have one last toast to your happiness before it all goes to shit.” Ty rolled his eyes and raised his glass in the air.  
  
“To family. If things are going to change for good, let us be strong and united. To Michele, to Helen, to Eva. To those we’ve loved and lost. To Mum. To those who have cared for us and helped us through. Olaf, Ingrid, Zeb and Stacey.”  
  
“To Dawn,” Anders chimed in, giving a meaningful look to Ty. Ty nodded.   
  
“To Dawn. See you on the other side of whatever lies ahead. I love you.” The last few words of Ty’s toast lingered, as the four of them sat in the flickering candlelight.   
****  
“Skål,” Mike affirmed, and they all clinked glasses and their brother’s word.  
  
”Skål.” __  
  



End file.
